Michel [aka Michael] Brisebois was born to a French-Canadian family in
Yamaska,
Quebec, Canada, in 1759. He attended school in
Quebec. Soon turning to the fur trade along the upper Mississippi River, he worked out of
Mackinac (1778) for the British-owned
Hudson's Bay Company. In 1781 he moved his operations to Prairie du Chien where, with other French-Canadian traders, he founded the first permanent European settlement. Although sympathizing with the British in the struggle for control of the
Northwest Territory after the United States achieved independence, he accepted a commission in the
Illinois Territorial Militia (1809). During the
War of 1812, Brisbois furnished supplies to both the American and British forces but maintained a pro-British attitude. Arrested for treason at the close of the war, he was sent to St. Louis, Missouri, for trial but was acquitted. After the war, Brisbois became a baker in Prairie du Chien. Still a trader at heart, he noted the lack of stability in early government currency, and encouraged the use of bread (from his bakery) as a unit of exchange. In 1819 Brisbois was appointed associate justice for Crawford County by US Governor
Lewis Cass of
Michigan Territory. Later he was elected or appointed to other local offices in the Prairie du Chien area.
Marriage and family In 1785 Brisbois had married a
Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) woman, in what may have been an informal or "country marriage" typical in that period between traders and Native American women. (She was reputedly the natural, or illegitimate
Métis daughter of
Charles Gautier de Verville and a native woman). Dousman had three mixed-race children with her. In Canada the
Métis have been recognized as an ethnic group that has the status of a
First Nation. The children were named Angélique, Michel, and Antoine, and were raised primarily by their mother, who lived in a settlement with Ho-Chunk relatives. The Ho-Chunk have a
matrilineal kinship system, in which they consider children born to the mother's people. By other accounts, according to affidavits of people who knew the persons involved, Brisbois had fathered at least one daughter named Angelica Brisbois with a "full blood Winnebago woman," named Cham-brey-win-kaw. After Angelica's death, her widower cited her Ho-Chunk ancestry as the basis for claiming money for their two children, set aside for people of mixed ancestry in the 1837 Winnebago treaty. Later Brisbois married formally on August 8, 1796, in
Mackinaw City, Michigan, to Domitilde (Madeleine) Gautier de Verville, a legitimate daughter of Charles Gautier de Verville. They had a son
Bernard Walter Brisbois, born in Prairie du Chien in 1808. The senior Brisbois died in Prairie du Chien on April 1, 1837. ==Brisbois House (I)==